“Cartucho, de Nellie Campobello, antecedente primitivista de Pedro Páramo”

In Realismo mágico y primitivismo (1998), Erik Camayd-Freixas analyses the solutions proposed by Rulfo for the problems of the primitivism which were revealed in El reino de este mundo and Hombres de maíz. In this contribution, I argue that Campobello had already pointed at some of these solutions in Cartucho. To this end, I show how she avoids some of the problems linked to primitivism in juxtaposing the resources of Cartucho to those of Pedro Páramo. Next I elaborate on the specific characteristics of primitivism in Cartucho : the ontological fluidity, the collectivism and the logic of the concrete. Finally, I discuss whether it is legitimate to propose a playful and alegorical reading of Cartucho, two interpretations suggested by its primitivist nature.